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MAME frustrations...


MrBeefy

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Get a small form factor Core i5 or i7, run current MAME with a good frontend, and the experience (and game selection) is miles better.

 

The only problem I see here, and argument against a PC, is just that. The PC. The PC scares people away from emulation better than anything else out there. Because "PC". Because complexity. Because configuration. Because you have to know how a file system works.

 

I can tell you this though - i7 opens up possibilities. You can now run Altirra and Stella and other full-featured emulators, and actually use those features.

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This is a common misconception. You very much get what you pay for: primitive emulations of games from a 16 years ago version of MAME with incorrect colors, sounds, gameplay speeds, and the occasional CPU core bug to keep things interesting. Even the golden oldies like Pacman and Donkey Kong are emulated to a far higher standard of fidelity now than was possible back then. Get a small form factor Core i5 or i7, run current MAME with a good frontend, and the experience (and game selection) is miles better.

Beat it for $65. Better yet, play a double-blind test with a "black box" system (e.g., all you see is a display and controller) then play a random sample of games from the era most of us here are concerned with from say '78-'84) and then guess what platform you're running on. I would venture to say - based on similar things I've seen among audiophile snobs, guitar snobs, etc - that the VAST majority can't tell the difference as easily as they say they can on the internet. ;(

 

So believe what you like. Reality will almost certainly differ for most real-world users.

 

(And I say this as a person with more than my share of computers, expensive guitars and snobby beers in the fridge).

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Beat it for $65. Better yet, play a double-blind test with a "black box" system (e.g., all you see is a display and controller) then play a random sample of games from the era most of us here are concerned with from say '78-'84) and then guess what platform you're running on. I would venture to say - based on similar things I've seen among audiophile snobs, guitar snobs, etc - that the VAST majority can't tell the difference as easily as they say they can on the internet. ;(

 

So believe what you like. Reality will almost certainly differ for most real-world users.

 

(And I say this as a person with more than my share of computers, expensive guitars and snobby beers in the fridge).

 

Easy. If the girders in DK are bright red, it's 16 year old MAME on the Pi (or a Pentium II Celeron system, which has about the same level of CPU capability). If they're more of a rose/pink, it's current MAME or a real PCB. Audio and controller latency are lower on modern builds. This isn't a case of MP3 vs MP4 or something, there are real tells present.

 

I can't necessarily beat it for $65 (the ODROID-C2 probably will, but we don't have benchmarks yet), but the PC or Mac or Linux system or Android device you're probably typing this on all can deliver a better MAME experience for free.

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Easy. If the girders in DK are bright red, it's 16 year old MAME on the Pi (or a Pentium II Celeron system, which has about the same level of CPU capability). If they're more of a rose/pink, it's current MAME or a real PCB. Audio and controller latency are lower on modern builds. This isn't a case of MP3 vs MP4 or something, there are real tells present.

 

I can't necessarily beat it for $65 (the ODROID-C2 probably will, but we don't have benchmarks yet), but the PC or Mac or Linux system or Android device you're probably typing this on all can deliver a better MAME experience for free.

 

 

Relying on color variances through a random selection of consumer-grade non-color calibrated monitors (ranging from SDTV composite output up to the latest 4K LEDs), playing with any number of HLSL or GLSL effects applied, is an absurd metric. I can GUARANTEE you that no one - not even a world-class player - would ever be able to tell the difference on small color variances when played that way the average home emulation player does. That's just silly. Same thing for audio latency, given how many variables there are in the audio pipelines of any home gamer's systems. Unless you're building a dedicated system with a DAW-quality tool to measure, quantify and reduce latency (something I happen to know a bit about - see my note about personal guitar snobbery above), that's another terrible measure.

 

The last one, controller latency - eh, maybe. At least it's one that can easily be measured objectively between a visible motion of the control input and a visible response on the screen. However, I play a LOT of classics on my RPi system (and used to do so on my Mac) and there's just not enough difference in controller response to detract from the experience. And is it enough to give it away in a double-blind test? Maybe, maybe not. I have yet to hear proof of that other than assertions.

 

That said, that brings me back to the point - which seems to be missed. So let me make the point again = in terms of FUN/COST ratio, you cannot beat an RPi setup. Which I think is exactly what I said above. And having said all that, I was typing before on an iPhone. I am typing now on a Mac. If I can obtain these and dedicate them - and the necessary associated controller(s) - for free, I guess I'm silly. I had to pay for them. And a lot more than my RPi setup cost.

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Relying on color variances through a random selection of consumer-grade non-color calibrated monitors (ranging from SDTV composite output up to the latest 4K LEDs), playing with any number of HLSL or GLSL effects applied, is an absurd metric. I can GUARANTEE you that no one - not even a world-class player - would ever be able to tell the difference on small color variances when played that way the average home emulation player does.

 

It's not a subtle change depending on color profiles and all that like the NES palettes people like to argue over. We're talking about going from an EGA-style pure R, no G, no B to a more muted pink tone. It's actually even obvious if you run on a monochrome monitor, due to the luminance change.

 

MAME has averaged between 10 and 20 source code commits every day for the 15 years since the version being run on the Pi was made. If you want to believe that none of those are user-visible, you can. Keatah noted that Tempest on the Pi version will have obvious incorrect behavior resulting in a lock up every time, the same is true of dozens of other games. It used to not be possible to get to the kill screen in Pac-Man. Operation Wolf used to be missing entire boss fights - that was just fixed last week in 0.176. And so on and so forth. Whatever your window is for games that you consider vital, they're better (and there's many more of them) after 15 more years of development on the emulation. And you wouldn't need to pay for your Mac, since you already own it. Just add fun.

Edited by Arbee
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I beat that $65 over a decade ago with Mame (or other arcade emulators) running on an original Xbox bought used for $30 :lol: It ran classic games "good enough".

 

But yes we all know PC is the way to go.. latest and greatest, optimized. There is no beating it. I'm still really just waiting to make the jump to make myself a good dedicated HTPC in a small case and have it dedicated to emulators and vids. It'll happen soon :)

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But yes we all know PC is the way to go.. latest and greatest, optimized. There is no beating it. I'm still really just waiting to make the jump to make myself a good dedicated HTPC in a small case and have it dedicated to emulators and vids. It'll happen soon :)

 

Yes. This. For the stated reasons and so many more.

 

Done right, you get aesthetically pleasing futuristic box that we could only dream about (in the sci-fi sense) as children of the 70's and 80's. A Magic Machine full of imagination and good times.

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At the moment I'm trying to find uses for some old hardware in the shed. Got Hyperspin set up on an old 2Ghz Celeron from around 2002 running XP. On that, MAME should be capable of running anything from the 80s and probably early 90s. Only got a 30Gb hard drive so it's just as well it probably won't run anything newer.

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  • 2 weeks later...

MAME is unnecessarily frustrating with the endless updates that make files that worked fine before now suddenly wrong. I am running MAMEUI64 0.172 and it runs almost all the games, though Galaga does not work, and all the vector games that worked with Windows XP don't work. Not a single one. I can't figure out why and nobody here had any idea why either. Conversely, some games that I didn't even realize I had now work and appear in the list of games so I think that you'll never get all your roms to work on one version of MAME but this one is close, albeit minus all the vector games. Are you using a front end? I couldn't get it to do anything via the command line version of MAME. Way too difficult for me!

 

i had the same problem.

 

Well, i've been trying some games in MAME again, and using the latest 170 and up versions.

 

for some reason a lot of the old namco games don't work anymore for me.

 

galaga, dig dug, etc....

 

after looking around found out that you need namco BIOS files to make them work correctly,

which you didn't need before.

 

https://forums.emulator-zone.com/showthread.php?t=14069

 

Basically, look for namcoXX.zip files, and place them in the ROMS directory,

and then they work.

 

later

-1

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A great write-up and understanding of MAME ROMs is here.

 

A portion of the article is posted below...

 

 

 

"...

I still don’t know why my games don’t work.

 

You probably got your ROMs from a ROM Site, the ROM Site doesn’t know or care what type of ROM SET they have. You downloaded some set for some version of MAME from some time in the past assuming that old versions of ROMs will work with current versions of MAME.

 

A lot of ROM files were badly dumped when the emulation scene started, everyone was new to it, it’s incredibly difficult and mistakes were made. The emulators were written to use the best available dump and MAME was no exception. As time marched on, redumps were done for bad dumps, badly named dumps were identified correctly and naming conventions for ROM files were changed. As this happened the developers of MAME updated the ROM Sets with the correct ROM Files, changed the names of badly named ones and generally cleaned up as things improved.

 

Then Split sets were introduced and all the ROMs were reorganised again, then BIOS sets emerged and caused another big reorganization. Finally Devices were created and so the ROM Sets changed again. This is all still going on. New Games are added, bad dumps are replaced, files are renamed, sets are reorganised. Every time this happens, the ROM Set for that game from previous versions no longer works. So to answer the original question…

  • Your ROM Set is too old.
  • You have a ROM for the current version but it needs one or more Parent/ BIOS/ Device sets.
The easiest solution to either of these problems is to get a complete set of the latest version of MAMEs ROM Sets. Doing that is illegal so I can’t tell you where to go and do it but Google is your friend.

"

 

 

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A great write-up and understanding of MAME ROMs is here.

 

A portion of the article is posted below...

 

 

 

"...

I still don’t know why my games don’t work.

 

You probably got your ROMs from a ROM Site, the ROM Site doesn’t know or care what type of ROM SET they have. You downloaded some set for some version of MAME from some time in the past assuming that old versions of ROMs will work with current versions of MAME.

 

A lot of ROM files were badly dumped when the emulation scene started, everyone was new to it, it’s incredibly difficult and mistakes were made. The emulators were written to use the best available dump and MAME was no exception. As time marched on, redumps were done for bad dumps, badly named dumps were identified correctly and naming conventions for ROM files were changed. As this happened the developers of MAME updated the ROM Sets with the correct ROM Files, changed the names of badly named ones and generally cleaned up as things improved.

 

Then Split sets were introduced and all the ROMs were reorganised again, then BIOS sets emerged and caused another big reorganization. Finally Devices were created and so the ROM Sets changed again. This is all still going on. New Games are added, bad dumps are replaced, files are renamed, sets are reorganised. Every time this happens, the ROM Set for that game from previous versions no longer works. So to answer the original question…

  • Your ROM Set is too old.
  • You have a ROM for the current version but it needs one or more Parent/ BIOS/ Device sets.
The easiest solution to either of these problems is to get a complete set of the latest version of MAMEs ROM Sets. Doing that is illegal so I can’t tell you where to go and do it but Google is your friend.

"

 

 

Good article.

 

The only thing it doesn't mention is which version was the change from a non-merged set to a merged set.

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I know that for me.. once i get a particular version of mame working with many of the games ive played.. and with possibly hyperspin or similar.

and also a Hercules mainframe emulation (had both in past)... but I now have a 6yr old laptop that Im replacing

the vista32 on it with 64bit Linux Mint (was a 64bit laptop to start with, school was cheap and put 32bit on it for the classes i took).

 

Anyway, once its upgraded to linux etc this laptop will only be for emulations and probably never anything else.

 

 

Is mame soley a windows deal?

 

The Hercules mainframe emu is both .. I had it in a windowsxp setup, and am moving it to Linux.. but per that is a fullblown redo.

If mame is not Linux capable.. I'm not sure I will want to bother...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mame is available for Linux of course. I include it with my distro (debian testing based) as well:

 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bruce-s-custom-sparky-gnome/?source=navbar

 

Just do a sudo apt-get update and you will be on v0.176. Setup is easy as anything. Just run Mame and it now includes its own frontend. Select the rom folder(s) and away you go. You just need to have the latest romset for 0.176. Pleasuredome has been the place I have gone for these for years.

 

I really don't see where the frustration comes in. You download the romset to a folder and you add that folder to the rom folder list in the mame frontend (the one that is built into mame now). If you want CHD's (these are the hard drive based games like Killer Instinct and so on) you download that set to a folder and add that to your rom folder list. If you want software list roms or CHDs (console games and console CD images) you download those to a folder and add them to the rom folder list in the Mame frontend. Then you click on a game to load it. I think the most common issue I have seen over the years are people trying to use very old romsets they find online somewhere with a current version of Mame. Romsets get re-dumped (when they find a dump is incorrect, or they replace a "placeholder" with a rom that has been finally correctly dumped, etc) and things get added to them (and things get renamed) every version so you cannot expect a pacman rom from v0.36 to run on v0.176. Get the romset for the version you are using and you will not have any issues at all. Merged roms are fine and save a lot of space as well. Get a full 7z merged 0.176 romset from Pleasuredome and you will be set for arcade roms. If you want the others they are available as well. They are free but it is recommended to follow the rules and share up when completed.

Edited by eightbit
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  • 1 month later...

Quick question, guys. I somehow seemed to have mapped a slider control for Master Volume to one of the fire buttons on my X Arcade stick (the upper 3rd button, the Heavy Punch if thinking Street Fighter 2 controls). This is a problem for many games as the on screen volume slider shows up if you accidentally hit it (or need a game that uses that button).

 

I can't seem to get this fixed. I've recently learned to to map controls to certain games, but I'd like a 'global' disconnect of any slider (or non-game input) control from my main fire buttons on my X Arcade stick.

 

Any help? Thanks!

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Config menu (usually TAB key unless you changed it) -> Input (General) -> Other Controls

 

Scroll down to volume up/down, and dissociate them from the buttons in question. The easiest way to do this is to highlight them and press the DEL key, which clears all mappings for those functions. If you want to assign them to some other buttons, you can re-map. Personally, I think it's best to just adjust volume with the control on your speakers.

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Config menu (usually TAB key unless you changed it) -> Input (General) -> Other Controls

 

Scroll down to volume up/down, and dissociate them from the buttons in question. The easiest way to do this is to highlight them and press the DEL key, which clears all mappings for those functions. If you want to assign them to some other buttons, you can re-map. Personally, I think it's best to just adjust volume with the control on your speakers.

 

Thanks Cyn. I'll see if this works; I tried it before, thinking the obvious, but for some reason it didn't take. I'll try again with the delete business, because I don't actually require any volume control in-game via controls. I guess they think of everything, those Mamers... :D

 

Nope, didn't work.

 

It's a Master Volume Slider control that pops up...it extends along the whole lower portion on the bottom of the screen. It's mapped to Q, I think...but I can't seem to turn off the slider controls, period...unlike everything else.

 

Any other ideas?

Edited by atarilovesyou
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If your X-Arcade is in its default layout mode your inputs look like this:

 

post-18-0-27433800-1477481561_thumb.jpg

 

If it's in Mode 1 for PC & Mac (Which also mimics the HotRod SE controller) setting, it is mapped this way:

 

post-18-0-07701300-1477481567_thumb.jpg

 

For Strong/Fierce/Heavy punch that means likely either "Q" or "Space Bar" is mapped for Player 1. If you cannot find Space Bar or Q mapped anywhere related to volume or slider controls, heeding NE146's advice is probably best; wipe all CFG files and start fresh.

 

You may want to even start in a new folder and just cut and paste ROMs, samples, artworks, stas, etc.

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Can I erase all the controller presets without wiping out all the game data, like bezel on/off, all that stuff? That took forever to do, lol. I really don't know what happened with my control scheme, but it sure is annoying. I think I triggered it somehow while playing Darius one night...and something tells me it was a 'hot key' thing, where you're pressing two buttons on the keyboard at the same time (or more) and the keyboard thinks you're doing something on purpose when you're not. That's my story anyway; I've never intentionally mapped out buttons other than the stock setup. Either way, it's gotta get fixed up and I think a wipe might be the easiest option.

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